“Marihuana para sus asimientos y su asma. Le ayudó a curar. Marihuana, good medicine.”
McCutchen bolted upright, pain shooting along his spine. “You pumped me full of loco weed? To make me better?”
“Si.”
“You crazy old hag! What the hell did you do that for?” He could hear his grandfather’s words echoing in his brain, lecturing him about the limitations of men who depend on stimulants and alcohol for courage.
He’d taken a vow when he first became a Ranger that nothing stronger than a good glass of wine would violate the sanctity of his body—temperance seeming more reasonable than prohibition considering his Scotch-Irish, Presbyterian upbringing. His father may have been a spineless, religious nut, but he made a dang good wine.
As he tore into the woman again, the muscles in his face jerked and twitched worse than before. “Not now.” He pressed his fingers to his face, breathing deep. Nervous tics had affected him since youth and were intensified by stress. While studying the latest criminal justice methods in Austin he’d developed successful means to discipline and control his body. He lost them among his alien surroundings.
He tried to stand. “Look, woman. I need my damn guns, and I’ll get out of your hair.”
The woman clucked softly and shook her head, positioning herself to support him. Struggling to fend the old woman off and stand without her help, McCutchen flopped backward into the litter. Suddenly she shushed him with a slashing gesture across her throat. He didn’t argue. He heard it too.
Stilling himself, he struggled to slow his heart rate and control the spasms in his face and throat. Swallowing came hard while a humming rose in his ears. Relax, dammit. But it was no use. The old woman reached under the mattress to pull out a slick Winchester rifle, lever action. She eased a bullet into the chamber.
“What the—”
She held a single finger to her lips.
He heard it again, the sound of boots scuffling in the dirt outside the chink house. He gestured for the woman’s attention, mouthing the same question from before, “pistolas?” But she stared intently at the heavy curtain hanging in her doorway, as a shallow bleat from a goat ended in gurgling.
“Santa María, Madre de Dios.” She kissed an amulet hanging from her neck and steadied the rifle. It would’ve been comedic, if his life hadn’t depended on this shriveled old woman leveling a rifle longer than she was tall.
Still trying to regulate his breathing, McCutchen scanned the room for his pistols. He heard more movement outside. The edge of the curtain bulged inward. This is crazy, he thought. I’m being hunted by bandits in Mexico with only a raisin and some goats to protect me, and the only thing he could find within reach to fight with was a kettle. Cast iron, it would have to do. The curtain moved again.
A goat poked his head through the opening and bleated, blood dripping from its muzzle. A roar and flash ripped the stillness in two as the old woman pulled the trigger on the .30-30, working the lever action to reload.
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